


I Bet, In a Week...

by ProtoNeoRomantic



Series: As You Are, As You Were, As I Want You to Be [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Back to Earth, Betrayal, Canon Compliant, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Denial, Episode: s02e21-22 Becoming, Episode: s03e03 Faith Hope & Trick, Episode: s03e04 Beauty and the Beasts, Episode: s03e05 Homecoming, Episode: s03e08 Lovers Walk, Episode: s03e12 Helpless, Episode: s06e03 After Life, F/M, Forgiveness, Going to Hell, Love, POV Male Character, POV Outsider, POV Second Person, Present Tense, Secrets, Suffering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 04:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1291963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoNeoRomantic/pseuds/ProtoNeoRomantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angel's POV on his 'rapid recovery' after coming back from hell in the early part of BtVS season three.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Bet, In a Week...

**Author's Note:**

> For more information on Canon Compliance, Story Mechanics and Themes, see series description.

Madness rushes in, into the space hollowed out by pain.  The pain is lessening.  Enough to feel how much it still hurts.  The cycles of dark and bright confuse you, and you hide.  

But hunger drives you out when it is dark again at last.  You feed upon some hapless, fuzzy thing and vaguely pity it, more empathizing than regretting, neither as sharp or real as need satisfied or pain undented.

Everything here is hard and sharp.  Time crawls and moments jump at you.  You know this place as if from a dream.  You spent a brief time here once.  All of you, each of you.  Together and alone.

And suddenly, like a miracle, the way the sun is like a star, exactly like, there she stands upon this middle earth, this not quite hell, this rising heaven.  Her name shuffles and sifts through the back of your brain trying to come forward and be heard.  But she is so, so far back through centuries of past to this impossible present, and you snarl instead, frustrated, confused.  Still hungry.

She is the sunrise, beautiful and deadly.  You don't know if you want to love her or eat her.  She doesn't give you a choice.  The pain comes in bright, sharp, sudden blows and you awake in chains.  Back in this evil place, this house that is a chimney, a lightning rod, an aerial of hell.

Light comes again, then merciful, healing darkness, and you break the chains, driven out by hunger that is not.  Another need, strong and confusing and certain there is something wrong.  There is.  When you find her, she's in danger.   You kill and find a dead boy at your feet.  Confused.  You only meant to save her.

And there she is.  You find the name at last, close enough to touch, touching.  Impossible.  Inevitable.  "Buffy?"  Buffy.  Like mercy.  Like the sun is like a star.  Exactly like.  You are weak before her strength.  You cling to her.  She lets you, and you let her take you home.

Home.  How strange that it should be, and yet it is home, this house you chose (or most of you) this world you would have chosen.  Because she is here.  You live where you have died and let your murderer restore you.

She never says she's sorry, cause she's not.  She wasn't wrong.  But she might be, if she knew how much it hurt.  She might be sorry.  So you hide it and don't tell her.  "It hurts, less."  And more and deeper.  That's the part you never say.

You walk back into her world like walking off a ship after months at sea, like walking back into the flow of time after The Duration.  You learn to say "last year" when you mean a thousand years ago, on the other side of all that pain, and something else before that, just before.

And she never says "I'm sorry," cause she's not.  She wasn't wrong.  Not that she'll ever know about.  That moment when the world came rushing back, redemption squandered, damned by the love that saved your soul, by the girl who set you free but couldn't let you go.  

You live around it.  She can never know.  She might be sorry, might beg your poor forgiveness, which is not good enough for her.  It's your job to be wrong, to be sorry, to be forgiven, again and again.  You have no right to be wronged, to forgive, to be her victim.  She loves you.  It is miracle enough.  To be forgiven.

"I'm alright," you lie.  It's better this way.


End file.
